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8 Windows Time Tracking Apps for Better Productivity – Best Of

If you’re looking to achieve high productivity at work, it is quite important to keep track of time spent working. And a good way to do it is by getting yourself a time tracking app. A time tracking app will keep complete track of the activities on your PC and how much time you have spent working or goofing around.

Rescue Time is the easiest yet highly customizable time tracking app that is perfect for individual users. Download this app for Windows and it will start logging in all your activity in its smart dashboard. The dashboard categorises your activity in different built-in categories, and lets you see how you have spent the time.

In the free version you will get unlimited website and applications monitoring, weekly summaries and ability to set goals. If you are looking for more features, then its pro version offers ability to block websites, unlimited report history, alerts for achievements and track time away from the PC.

Along with these handy features, it gives full control over when you would like to track time and which websites/applications should be tracked.

Rescue Time has a free version with different basic features, and a Pro version costing $9/month offering several advanced features.

Pros

Easy to use.

Full tracking available for free.

Smart dashboard categorizes time spent.

Highly customizable.

Cons

An advanced time tracking app that comes with built-in employee payment system. Hubstaff is best for teams where you can track activity of your employees and automatically complete payments according to work done. It allows you to track time spent on applications and websites while taking occasional screenshots of individual users.

Using its free version, you can track total time spent, take screenshots (limited storage) and see activity level through interactive graphs. With its paid version, you’ll get the ability to track keyboard/mouse activity, automatically make payments, complete tracking of each app or website used, create weekly budgets, track offline time and track daily attendance.

There is a free version of Hubstaff or you can opt for the Paid version starting from $5/month for a single user.

Pros

Cons

Toggl is a highly customizable and comprehensive time tracking app that is perfect for both individuals and teams. It’s easy to use and many of its advanced tracking features are available for free.

It will let you track applications and website activity on your PC, manually add and delete entries, track idle time, track time automatically based on tags, see on demand reports and much more – all for free.

It’s paid versions offers complete billing system, ability manage reports, use custom logo, get alerts for tasks, setup goals, set budget, limit time allotted and more. Toggl is the perfect app if you are looking for a simple, customizable yet powerful time tracking app.

Toggle offers a cost-free version that offers quite advanced tracking features. There is a Pro version starting from $10/month as well, offering a complete and feature-filled tracking tool.

Pros

Cons

Another great time tracking tool that supports complete billing system to handle employees. Time Camp lets you create unlimited projects to track time and activity to create billable reports.

You can create keywords for your tasks to automatically start monitoring when those keywords are used. I also found its reporting feature to be very detailed with ability to see the app in use and activity inside it with complete details.

Time Camp offers all its tracking features in the free version, making it perfect for individual users. You can upgrade to its pro version to get advanced reporting and automatic billing features; including online invoicing.

You can opt for the free version of Time Camp or go for the Pro version starting from $6/month per user.

Pros

Built-in billing system.

Great time tracking features for free.

Detailed reporting.

Automatic invoicing.

Automatic time tracking.

Cons

Openhour is a comprehensive time tracking tool that does a great job of automatically tracking activity and managing it. It uses tags to identify activity and organizes it. Overtime, it will automatically assign tags and manage your activity and let you know how you spent the time on your PC. It also tracks every type of activity in your PC, including your interaction with menus and buttons.

Interestingly, Openhour’s interface has no buttons or confusing menus, you just need to select the created task and rest is handled by the app. Its free version includes all tracking features with limited history (week only) and the pro version offers unlimited history. Additionally, there is also a paid team version that allows multiple users to track and manage activity.

Openhour offers a free version with all basic tracking features, along with a Pro versioncosting $7.95/month, offering an array of advanced features.

Pros

All tracking features available for free.

Automatic time tracking.

Automatic task organizing using tags.

Very simple interface.

Cons

Time Doctor lets you track all the activity on your PC and take customizable screenshots of activity. Specifically made for teams, it can keep track of employee activity and avoid distractions by prompting them to get back to work if they stray away. Furthermore, it also allows you to make payments to employees based on the work recorded without any fee.

It also has GPS tracking feature in its smartphone app to track location of the users and only track work time when they are in the work environment. You will need to upgrade to the pro version for client login and billing features.

There is a free version offered for Time Doctor as well as a Pro version costing $9.99/month.

Pros

Take screenshots of activity.

Built-in tool to avoid distractions.

Billing system.

GPS tracking.

Cons

One thing that attracted me the most to put ManicTime in this list is its a Windows app. All the apps listed in this article just track usage and send it to the web portal where you can see the reports in your browser. However, ManicTime tracks and shows reports in its desktop app without depending on web portals.

Furthermore, it’s real-time tracking is very detailed and separately shows time spent on each application and contents inside it. I was also very impressed by automatic tags and smart bar charts.

It’s free version offers automatic tracking and detailed stats. You will have to buy a paid lifetime license (without future updates) to get features like, auto tagging, time limitations, password protection, ability to hide the tracker and more.

ManicTime comes with a free version and you can also get a Paid Lifetime license for $67/user, depending on your needs.

Pros

Built-in dashboard.

Real-time state update.

Detailed reporting.

Doesn’t requires sign-up to use the free version.

Cons

Doesn’t come with auto-sync for free version so you can’t see data from anywhere.

TopTracker is a completely free time tracking app that is specifically made for freelancers. Freelancers can manage different projects and invite team members to work together and track progress. The productivity of each member is shown separately using smart graphs with categorized activity. It can also take occasional screenshots and track activity on multiple monitors.

TopTracker can also directly integrate with most of the freelance websites to offer its tracking service to satisfy clients. However, direct integration also involves 10% fee on the projects completed.

There is a free version giving different time tracking functionalities. However, you can opt for the direct website integration that involves 10% of the project price.

Pros

Free time tracker.

Can track activity on multiple monitors.

Ability to take screenshots.

Manage unlimited team members and projects.

Cons

No invoicing features, which are actually important for freelancers.

May require more manual intervention as compared to others in this list.

Conclusion

Above we have listed both paid and free apps to take care of your time and activity tracking needs. I believe Toggl is definitely the most comprehensive app for tracking time and handling billing, which can be used by both individuals and teams.

Although I personally really liked ManicTime’s built-in dashboard that offered real-time reports on where each second was spent.

If you know any other good time tracking apps for Windows, do share with us in the comments below.